Rocking, Grooving or Swinging Goodbye to '04 and Hello to '05

Published: December 24, 2004

A selective listing by the pop and jazz critics of The Times: Noteworthy New Year's Eve celebrations in the New York metropolitan region next Friday. * denotes a highly recommended event.

Rock and Pop

ASOBI SEKSU, Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston Street, at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, (212) 260-4700. What was once called shoegazer rock -- shimmering, multilayered guitars enfolding confessions of longing and ambiguity -- is back in Asobi Seksu, a New York band that wraps its guitars and keyboard around well-made pop melodies and the girlish ache of Yuki Chikudate's voice. New Year's Eve at 8 p.m, topping a bill with Other Passengers, the Winter Pageant, Levy, Sylophone and Autodrone. Admission is $20, with a Champagne toast at midnight.
JON PARELES

* BRAZILIAN GIRLS, the Knitting Factory Tap Bar, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006. Electronica, a live rhythm section and a wildly cosmopolitan spirit meet a charismatic and unpredictable singer, Sabina Sciubba, in the Brazilian Girls. The music dips into reggae, samba, funk and house, never staying in one place long. New Year's Eve at 10:30 p.m., with the disc jockeys James and Justin spinning dance music until dawn. Admission is $20.
PARELES

* DADDY YANKEE, the Copacabana, 560 West 34th Street, Far West Side, (212) 239-2672. On a restless and ferocious CD called ''Barrio Fino'' (VI/Universal), Daddy Yankee spits rapid-fire rhymes to match his machine-gun beats. He's one of the biggest stars in Puerto Rico's booming reggaeton scene, and in his swaggering party tracks you can hear a whole universe of music, from salsa to techno. He presides over what should be one of the city's most exhilarating celebrations. New Year's Eve after 10 p.m.; tickets are $75 in advance (the price includes an hourlong open bar at 10), $100 at the door.
KELEFA SANNEH

DISCO BISCUITS, Hammerstein Ballroom, 311 West 34th Street, Manhattan, (212) 279-7740. The Disco Biscuits have worked their way up the jam-band circuit with blithe rock that veers toward funk and jazz, hovers in circling, hypnotic riffs and sometimes turns into a live version of electronic dance music, replacing computer drumbeats with muscle. New Year's Eve at 9 p.m.; tickets are $45 in advance, $50 on New Year's Eve.
PARELES

DJ SPOOKY, Rothko, 116 Suffolk Street, at Rivington Street, Lower East Side, (212) 475-7088. Paul Miller, also known as DJ Spooky, spins theories along with discs, and his collection runs to Stockhausen and Coltrane as well as breakbeats; whether he'll be ambient, uptempo or both is anyone's guess. He'll be joined by guests including the rapper Dalek. New Year's Eve at 9 p.m.; admission is $25.
PARELES

* DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. Drive-By Truckers treat Southern rock as both music and mythos, reaching back to the Americana of the Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young. Their latest album, ''The Dirty South'' (New West), finds populist connections among Wal-Mart workers, musicians, moonshiners and drug dealers, all struggling to get by. New Year's Eve at 1 a.m.; tickets are $30 in advance, $35 on Dec. 31. Also appearing on Jan. 1 at 9 p.m., with the garage-psychedelic trio Runner and the Thermodynamics opening; tickets are $20 in advance, $25 on Jan. 1.
PARELES

FORT BRAGG, Rodeo Bar, 375 Third Avenue, at 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 683-6500. A country band of Texans transplanted to New York City, Fort Bragg looks toward Austin, Nashville and Bakersfield, Calif., to sing about whiskey, the road and woman trouble. New Year's Eve, the first set begins at 10 p.m.; admission is free.
PARELES

GOGOL BORDELLO, Northsix, 66 North Sixth Street, Williamburg, Brooklyn, (718) 599-5103. Gogol Bordello, led by a gruff and extravagantly mustached Ukrainian singer, Eugene Hutz, calls itself a Gypsy punk band. Its songs work up to a frenetic oom-pah that's the makings of a rowdy party. New Year's Eve at 9; tickets are $30 in advance, $35 on Dec. 31.
PARELES

* GOV'T MULE, Beacon Theater, 2124 Broadway, at 74th Street, (212) 496-7070. Warren Haynes, the guitarist and leader of Gov't Mule, is now a member of both the Allman Brothers Band and the Dead. With Gov't Mule, he brings the gravity of the blues and the rolling grooves of Southern rock together with the bleary determination of grunge. His songs are haunted by death and memory, and he leads them into jams that can be both soaring and unsparing. New Year's Eve at 9 p.m.; tickets are $53.50 to $73.50.
PARELES

GARLAND JEFFREYS AND THE CONEY ISLAND PLAYBOYS WITH MICK JONES, Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, East Village, (212) 539-8778 or (212) 239-6200. The songwriter Garland Jeffreys is a longtime voice of multiethnic New York, mixing rock, reggae and touches of everything from doo-wop to samba. Along with love songs and reminiscences of running ''Wild in the Streets,'' he doesn't flinch from tough topics like racism. New Year's Eve at 9 p.m.; tickets are $65.
PARELES

EARTHA KITT, B. B. King Blues Club and Grill, 243 West 42nd Street, near Times Square, (212) 997-4144. She purrs, she growls, she teases and she rasps as she insinuates exactly what she wants from her man. Although it's a week late, she might still sing ''Santa Baby.'' New Year's Eve at 8 p.m.; tickets are $140, including dinner and a glass of Champagne, and $50 for general-admission seats plus a $10 food or drink minimum with a complimentary glass of Champagne. At the 10:30 p.m. set, tickets are $165, including dinner and a glass of Champagne. General admission is $75 with a $10 food or drink minimum, which includes a free glass of Champagne.
PARELES

AMEL LARRIEUX, S.O.B.'s (Sounds of Brazil), 204 Varick Street, at Houston Street, South Village, (212) 243-4940. Amel Larrieux, who used to sing with Groove Theory, is a high-minded pop-soul songwriter, singing about ambition and integrity. On albums, she floats her supple, girlish voice among twinkling starscapes of electric piano and phantom choruses of herself overdubbed; live, she's likely to be less ethereal. New Year's Eve at 8:30 p.m., with Eric Robertson opening; admission is $95 with dinner, $45 for standing room.
PARELES

FRANK LONDON'S KLEZMER BRASS ALL-STARS/SCOTT KETTNER'S MARACATU NEW YORK, the Knitting Factory Tap Bar, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa (212) 219-3006. Party music from two continents: the oom-pah of klezmer in a band led by the trumpeter Frank London, and the Brazilian carnival beat of maracatu from Maracatu New York. New Year's Eve at 8 p.m.; admission is $15.
PARELES

JESSE MALIN, Maxwell's, 1039 Washington Street, at 11th Street, Hoboken, N.J., (201) 653-1703. Jesse Malin led D Generation, the glam-rock kings of St. Mark's Place, and has gone on to a solo career that's considerably more earnest. New Year's Eve at 9 p.m.; tickets are $35, including a buffet and a Champagne toast.
PARELES

PARTICLE/BUCKETHEAD, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, at 15th Street, Union Square, (212) 777-6800. Particle is a jam band rooted in funk whose marathon sets might include a jam on ''Planet Rock,'' a long meditation on a single sustained chord, or a gospelly, organ-driven buildup fit for the Allman Brothers. Sharing the bill is the guitarist Buckethead, who hides his face behind a fried-chicken bucket and plays zooming, cutting hard-rock guitar leads that earned him a spot in Guns N' Roses. New Year's Eve at 9 p.m.; tickets are $45 in advance, $50 New Year's Eve.
PARELES

* MIKE PATTON AND JOHN ZORN, the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006. The singer Mike Patton has countless voices, from yowl to cackle to heroic and mock-heroic rock belting; the saxophonist and composer John Zorn loves both melodies and goofy noises. They have worked together in the band Mr. Bungle, and they're capable of both tightly plotted works and wildly spontaneous improvisations. New Year's Eve at 8 p.m.; admission is $30. New Year's Eve at 11, the band Trans Am -- which has traversed 1970's rock from prog-rock excursions to terse electro songs -- is added to the bill; tickets are $35.
PARELES

PEACHES, TriBeCa Grand, 2 Avenue of the Americas, at Church Street, (212) 519-6677. With deadpan calm and rhyming skills so modest that Lil' Kim won't be losing any sleep, Peaches raps about sex, sex and more sex over bare-bones drum-machine beats and sampled power chords. It's a dopey high-concept shtick that can turn into stupid fun. New Year's Eve, doors open at 10 p.m., and the disc jockeys including Spencer Product, DJ Language, Edward Newton and others until 8 a.m. Tickets are $99.
PARELES

* MARC RIBOT Y LOS CUBANOS POSTIZOS, Tonic, 107 Norfolk Street, near Delancey Street, Lower East Side, (212) 358-7503. The guitarist Marc Ribot, who has been in Tom Waits's band, can thread melodies through chord changes or make his guitar clank and boing. With his band Los Cubanos Postizos, he lovingly reaches back to the elegant Cuban melodies of Arsenio Rodriguez, giving them just a little modern edge. For New Year's Eve, the group is joined by Joe Bataan, who grew up in Spanish Harlem and, in the 1960's, began merging Engligh lyrics, Latin rhythms and funk into boogaloo and what he called Latin soul. Shows at 9:30 and 11:30; admission is $30 for the early show, $40 for the late show, or $60 for both, including a Champagne toast at midnight.
PARELES

* PATTI SMITH AND HER BAND, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. Love, death, transfiguration and pushy guitars have been Patti Smith's staples in the quarter-century since she turned her poetry into punk-rock. Always unpredictable and passionate, she still seeks shamanic revelation with every gig. Her New Year's Eve shows are reflections on the year past and rallying cries for the year to come. New Year's Eve at 9 p.m.; admission is $55, including a Champagne toast at midnight.
PARELES

SOUKOUS STARS, Satalla, 37 West 26th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-1155. Soukous is the Congolese music that sends guitars twining over a lilting rumba beat, and the Soukous Stars include two seasoned Congolese musicians, the guitarist Lokassa Ya Mbongo and the bassist Nguoma Lokito, not to mention four female dancers. On New Year's Eve, doors open at 8 p.m., the Soukous Stars begin at 10, and three disc jockeys will continue with African and world music until 4 a.m. Admission is $35 with a one-drink minimum.
PARELES

THE STAR SPANGLES, CBGB, 315 Bowery, at Bleecker Street, East Village, (212) 982-4052. Punk lives on in the hoarse vocals, speed-strummed guitars and revved-up pop melodies of the Star Spangles, whose songs have titles like ''I Live for Speed'' and ''Stay Away From Me.'' Tonight at 8, with River City Rebels, Lady Unluck, Electric Shadows and Thee Minks opening; tickets are $17.50.
PARELES

STRING CHEESE INCIDENT, Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Avenue of the Americas, at 50th Street, (212) 247-4777. This rather, uh, dopey jam band interrupts the Rockettes for a New Year's Eve show at Radio City Music Hall: the group is known for long, leisurely songs that sometimes draw from bluegrass; whereas Phish often used solos to send songs spiraling off in unexpected directions, String Cheese Incident favors more linear digressions, usually returning to the theme sooner rather than later. New Year's Eve at 9 p.m.; tickets are $70. The group is also scheduled to play the Theater at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday and Wednesday.
SANNEH

THE TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS, Tonic, 107 Norfolk Street, near Delancey Street, Lower East Side, (212) 358-7503. The Trachtenburg Family -- Jason Trachtenburg on keyboard and his young daughter Rachel on drums -- picks up collections of slides from garage sales and thrift stores and invents stories and songs around them that can be mocking or oddly moving. Tina Pia Trachtenburg, Jason's wife, runs the slide projector. New Year's Eve at 7:30 p.m.; tickets are $16 in advance, $20 on Dec. 31.
PARELES

* WILCO/THE FLAMING LIPS/SLEATER-KINNEY, Madison Square Garden, 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue, (212)465-6741. After years on the indie-rock and alt-rock circuit, these bands probably can't believe they're playing Madison Square Garden, but their music is big enough for the room. Wilco was once an alt-country band, but those days are long gone. Now its songs mutate on the spot, from straightforward strumming to washes of texture, from minimalist patterns to electronic rumbles, from ballads to brute force. It's moody, unpredictable music that can be testy or simply gorgeous. The Flaming Lips are fond of goofy theatrics and stately, concept-heavy songs carried by Wayne Coyne's plaintive voice, while Sleater-Kinney pours passion into songs that hurtle along but never stop thinking, with jagged guitar lines, wailing vocals and heartfelt lyrics. New Year's Eve at 8 p.m.; tickets are $37.50 to $57.50.
PARELES

ZEN TRICKSTERS, TriBeCa Rock Club, 16 Warren Street, (212) 766-1070. The Zen Tricksters got started two decades ago playing Grateful Dead songs. While they now have their own songs to jam on, they haven't forgotten their early repertory; no less a figure than Phil Lesh of the Dead has called on the expertise of Rob Barraco, a former Trickster keyboardist who will be rejoining his old band for this show. New Year's Eve at 9 p.m.; tickets are $20 in advance, $25 on Dec. 31.
PARELES

Jazz

HIRAM BULLOCK BAND, Sweet Rhythm, 88 Seventh Avenue South, above Bleecker Street, West Village, (212) 255-3626. Hiram Bullock, a powerful jazz-funk-rock guitarist -- he played with Gil Evans's latter-day groups a lot at this same spot, when it was called Sweet Basil -- is an old favorite on the New York scene. Sets are at 9:30 and 11:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve; cover charge for first set is $35 with a $15 food or drink minimum; for second set, $50 with a $25 minimum.
BEN RATLIFF

SASHA DOBSON WITH CHRIS BYARS OCTET, Fat Cat, 75 Christopher Street, West Village, (212) 675-6056. The young singer Sasha Dobson performed a lot with the saxophonist Chris Byars at the old jazz club Smalls, whose owner changed locations and calls his new place the Fat Cat. With the recent launching of Smalls Records and her own release on the label, ''The Darkling Thrush,'' Ms. Dobson returns to her old audience in a new setting. She's a canny improviser with classic Ella-and-Sarah tastes and good pitch; Mr. Byars's arrangements of standards fit her handsomely. New Year's Eve sets are at 10:30 p.m., midnight, 1:30 and 2:30 a.m.; the cover charge is a thrifty $25.
RATLIFF

* CYRUS CHESTNUT TRIO WITH GUESTS, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th Street, (212) 258-9595. Cyrus Chestnut, a pianist, swings the way the old guard used to; that's why he was so dazzling when he came on the scene in the early 1990's. But he is also a sentimentalist. Trios happen to be his best setting: they discourage his excesses and push him to his rhythmic limits. His guests include the saxophonist Frank Morgan and trumpeter Marcus Printup. On New Year's Eve, the club opens at 7 p.m., with a first set from 8:15 to 9:45 p.m.; a three-course dinner is included for $95. The room opens for the second set at 10 p.m., with music pushing well past midnight; that cover, including a three-course dinner and Champagne toast, is $155. The music will be broadcast live on WBGO-FM (88.3) from 11 p.m. to 12:15 a.m.
RATLIFF

JOE FARNSWORTH AND FRIENDS, Kitano Hotel, 66 Park Avenue, at 38th Street, (212) 885-7125. Seemingly the No. 1 drummer for the current crop of hard-bop revivalists -- he's a fixture at Smoke, playing with Harold Mabern, George Coleman, Eric Alexander and others -- Joe Farnsworth will jam past midnight with his friends and colleagues. The first New Year's Eve set runs from 9:30 to 10:45 p.m. and second set from 11:15 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.; the cover charge is $15, and the minimum, $10, for each set.
RATLIFF

FUNKBOX, Smoke, 2751 Broadway, at 106th Street, (212) 864-6662. A sextet playing funk, soul and 1960's and 70's-style R&B. Two sets of music plus DJ's spinning records in the intervals for New Year's Eve; there is an open bar from 9:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. and a Champagne toast at midnight. The cover is $125.
RATLIFF

* ROY HARGROVE AND FRIENDS, Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, at Spring Street, South Village, (212) 242-1063. In Roy Hargrove's band are the singer Renee Neufville, the saxophonist Jaleel Shaw, the pianist Stephen Scott, the bassist Ugonna Ukegwo and the drummer Johnathan Blake. For New Year's Eve, the first set is 8 to 10 p.m.; admission is $50. The second set is from 10:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.; admission is $75 and includes a Champagne toast. The third set runs from 1:30 to 3 a.m. and costs $40. Beer, wine, soda and coffee are free.
RATLIFF

* SHIRLEY HORN, Le Jazz Au Bar, 41 East 58th Street, Manhattan, (212) 308-9455. Like so many great American singers, Shirley Horn has Louis Armstrong inflections stamped on her style. They take the form of rhythmic risks over a steady pulse; you listen to her and sense that she could phrase a line however she wanted. But what has always made her different is her ice-menthol delivery in slow tempos, which tend to be more commanding in performance than on record. She'll be recording a new live album for Verve during this engagement at Le Jazz Au Bar. On New Year's Eve sets are at 8 and 10:30 p.m.; the cover charge is $100 for either set, which includes a Champagne toast during the second set.
RATLIFF

* CHRISTIAN McBRIDE QUARTET, Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-2232. One of the most virtuosic jazz musicians to emerge during the 1990's, the bassist Christian McBride indulges his interests in straight-ahead jazz as much as funk and pop and other areas; he'll play here with a quartet including the saxophonist Ron Blake, the pianist Geoff Keezer and the drummer Terreon Gully, with the singer Melissa Walker accompanying the band. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for a 7:30 New Year's Eve show; the cover charge is $95 and includes a three-course dinner. Doors open at 9:30 for the 10:30 p.m. show, and the cover charge is $150, including a three-course dinner and Champagne at midnight.
RATLIFF

JANIS SIEGEL, Birdland, 315 West 44th Street, Clinton, (212) 581-3080. Famous as a member of the a capella jazz group Manhattan Transfer, Janis Siegel has been making her own solo records as well; the most recent, ''Sketches of Broadway,'' features jazz arrangements of theater songs. Here she's backed by a quartet including the guitarist Romero Lubambo. On New Year's Eve her first set is at 8 p.m.; the cover charge is $40 and the minimum is $20. The second set is at 11 p.m., with a $75 cover and $20 minimum, includes Champagne.
RATLIFF

* DR. MICHAEL WHITE'S ORIGINAL LIBERTY JAZZ BAND OF NEW ORLEANS,Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, (212) 255-4037. The doors open at 8:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve and the first set begins at 9:30 p.m.; a second set starts at 11:30. The charge for the entire evening is $125, which includes the $25 drink minimum and New Orleans-style food. Reservations and a deposit are necessary.
RATLIFF

* CASSANDRA WILSON, Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, West Village, (212) 475-8592. Cassandra Wilson plays to jazz audiences, but isn't concerned with old definitions of the music. She's vaguely bohemian, though no one is more cosmopolitan; she has invented a playhouse of southern-rustic allusions, jazz standards, singer-songwriter music and pop-art radio hits, from ''Corcovado'' to Cyndi Lauper. She reshuffles the deck for instrumentation, putting a conga player next to a harmonica player who makes cello noises, next to a jazz guitarist playing folk or rural blues. Somehow -- her dusky alto voice helps -- the end result is original, self-conscious art, mellow and conspiratorially playful. Her band now includes the harmonica player Gregoire Maret, the guitarist Marvin Sewell, the bassist Reginald Veal and the percussionist Jeffrey Haynes. Each set begins with the opening act of Cephas & Wiggins, the Piedmont-blues guitar-and-voice duo. The first set on New Year's Eve begins at 7 p.m.; the $55 cover charge at the bar and $75 at tables include a Champagne toast. The second set is sold out.
RATLIFF

THE WOLLESONS, 55 Bar, 55 Christopher Street, West Village, (212) 929-9883. A funk-jazz group led by the drummer Kenny Wolleson, who has played all over the map of New York jazz. Music starts at 11 p.m. on New year's Eve; the cover is $20, including a Champagne toast.
RATLIFF